The turmoil between past and current members of KISS has hit a new peak once again. Just days before the extended KISS family will reportedly share a table at the 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, guitarist / vocalist Paul Stanley has stated, among other things, that classic members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss “don’t belong in the band. And they don’t belong in a position to represent the band.”

KISS’ induction into the Hall of Fame has been a long time coming, and because of that fact, Stanley has publicly stated in the past that finally being inducted is not an honor in the musician’s eyes. “The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is fluff. It’s a farce,” Stanley tells CBS. “It’s like an Addams Family bar mitzvah. I’m gonna go, but let’s not kid ourselves, you know. That’s not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is walking the streets…. I see it as dubious. We are the bitter pill that they ultimately had to swallow. Because they don’t like us. And the only reason they’re inducting us is because they begin to look foolish at some point for not having us in.”

Stanley also told CBS that he initially didn’t like bandmate Gene Simmons when the two first met. “I didn’t like him at all,” Stanley shares. “There’s days he annoys me now. You know the squeaky wheel gets the oil. So he’s the guy who everybody sees as like the brains behind KISS, which is really he is the mouth behind KISS. I always tell people he lives two minutes away and I can see his ego from here.”

When CBS brought up a recent quote from Simmons where the musician claimed Frehley and Criss “no longer deserve to wear the paint,” Stanley added to the barrage. “I agree that they don’t belong in the band. And they don’t belong in a position to represent the band. If the original lineup goes up for the sake of nostalgia for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who I scratch my head about in the first place, I run the risk of negatively impacting what I’ve spent 40 years doing.”

As for Ace Frehley, who along with Criss was accused of being anti-semitic by Stanley, the former KISS guitarist chose to take the high road. “We say good things about each other and we say bad things about each other [in our memoirs], but it is what it is,” Frehley tells VH1 Radio. “It’s rock and roll. I mean, if all we did was pat each other on the back for every book, people would say, ‘That’s a boring book.’ They want to hear the dirt. I’ve got plenty of dirt.” [via Blabbermouth]

Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10. The ceremony will be broadcast nationally by HBO on May 31.

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